Stuart Kettlewell branded referee Chris Graham’s decision to send off Dan Casey “completely unacceptable” and one of the worst he had ever seen.
With the game delicately poised at 1-1, Casey was dismissed after 78 minutes for grabbing Daniel Armstrong’s shirt and dragging it up towards his neck.
Graham immediately brandished the red but the VAR officials instructed him to the pitchside monitor to review his call.
Bizarrely Graham stood by his decision, despite the incident appearing to fall well short of being worthy of a red card, leaving Kettlewell understandably furious.
“I’ve used the words that I’m sick, fed up with it, and I am sick of it, I am,” Kettlewell said.
“I’m looking every single one of you in the eye here and we’re all seeing this the same way, we’re all seeing this the same way. I think it’s completely unacceptable that in our game at the top flight that you brandish a red card for that incident.
“And I think what compounds it and makes it even worse is that you get the opportunity to look at it again, you’ve been sent to the monitor and I do, I start to laugh at it almost out of boredom.
“Almost out of complete frustration at the fact that we’ve been told that we’ve had three incidents wrong in our last five games, two penalties and one a head knock in the opposition box and Dundee breaking to score a goal.
“I’ve said it and I’ve said it and I’ve said it until I’m blue in the face, I accept that, I’ve accepted the explanations.
“I’ve accepted the fault, but when I come to a decision like that and I don’t say this loosely, I don’t say this cheaply – I’ve been involved in this game as a player, a coach and a manager for a long, long time – that’s easily up there in my top three of worst decisions that I’ve ever seen in a game that I’ve been involved with. And quite frankly in a game that I’ve watched.”
Motherwell led after a dreadful opening 45 minutes at Fir Park courtesy of Liam Gordon’s first goal for the club.
Kilmarnock offered little as an attacking threat but Graham turned away a strong penalty appeal for the visitors before they equalised through Liam Polworth.
Meanwhile, Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes agreed with his counterpart Kettlewell and admitted he expected Graham to overturn his decision to send off Casey.
“I actually don’t think there was enough in the red card incident for it to stand,” McInnes said. “We were actually getting ready for Casey to come back on from what we saw on our monitor.
“The referee then maintained it was a red card, but I can think of three or four refs off the top of my head who would have dealt with it differently because of talking to the players.”
